Cons:

FOR A WHILE, I thought the DOOM 3 expansion pack, Resurrection of Evil, might actually outdo the game that spawned it. That's certainly how I felt during the first half of this add-on, which puts you in the shoes of a new space marine bound for Mars and the hell that awaits him there. The game introduces a few new tricks to DOOM 3's straightforward gameplay, and for the first few hours, it's extremely effective. Unfortunately, the game loses its way towards the end, but even so, there's enough good stuff that anyone who loved DOOM 3 will want to give this expansion a spin.

Darkness Falls Again

The story of Resurrection of Evil picks up about a year after DOOM 3. Our new hero is sent to Mars to investigate a strange signal coming from the now-closed Union Aerospace Corporation facility, and when the team stumbles upon a strange artifact, things quite literally go to Hell. The facility is once again flooded with countless demons, including three "Hunters" who you meet at key moments, and behind it all is the now-demonized form of the evil Dr. Betruger, who wants the artifact at all costs; the opening cutscenes make it clear that a showdown between the two is just a matter of time.

I thought story was a key element of DOOM 3, not because it was particularly deep, but because of the presentation. The game relied on PDA logs and emails from dead employees to paint an eerie picture of a facility in its final days, and slowly revealed the mystery of what had happened there. Although the PDA logs return in Resurrection of Evil, there's not much mystery to care about, and the bulk of the story is delivered via radio from your team leader, Dr. Elizabeth McNeil, with the occasional cutscene mixed in. As games go, it's pretty standard stuff, and hardly the expansion's strongest point.

Dr. McNeil is the head of your team, and feeds you orders throughout the game.

The Artifacts of Life

That honor goes to the gameplay throughout the first half of the expansion, which takes place in the Erebus Labs of the UAC facility. At a glance, it's the same basic concept as DOOM 3: starting in an archeological dig, you make your way through the complex, with demons teleporting in from every direction. However, little time goes by before new mechanics are introduced to keep things from feeling stale.

The first new addition is the "grabber," a weapon that will undoubtedly be compared to Half-Life 2's gravity gun. Taking advantage of DOOM 3's advanced physics, you can pick up many items (and even some small demons) and toss them around. Suddenly, you can grab fireballs out of the air and fling them back at enemies for one-shot kills, saving precious ammo in the process. Half-Life 2 may have done it first, but it's still a useful option to have in your arsenal.

The next important gadget is the artifact you find at the start of the game. Throughout the game, there are scattered battles against the three Hunter bosses, and each one charges the artifact with a new power. The first is "Hell Time," which allows you to slow down the world around you. The second is a berserker ability, granting you additional attacking power, and the third gives you temporary invulnerability. While these abilities are required to complete a small handful of puzzles, you can use them far more often just for the fun of it.

A quick cutscene introduces you to the grabber, which allows you to turn small objects into weapons.

Finally, there's the double-barreled shotgun, which is actually pretty significant. For most of the early enemies, it's a one-shot kill, and it's so satisfying to use that you may not want to use anything else. Unlike most of the weapon sounds from DOOM 3, the new shotgun lets out a thunderous BOOOM and sends enemies flying across the level -- you'll want to scrounge every last locker so you never run out of ammo.

When you add all this up, you get gameplay that feels more energized than the deliberate pace of DOOM 3. You'll run into a room, demons will spawn in, you'll switch to the grabber and knock back a fireball or two. Then you'll kick into Hell time, switch to the double-barreled shotgun, and flatten a few more demons before they can even twitch. For the first half of the game, you've got a lot of tactical options available to you, which is more than can be said for many shooters.